


Running Into (Over) A Girl

by ozhawk



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV), Marvel, Marvel (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: F/M, Meet-Cute, Pietro Lives, post-season 3, then it got angsty
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-03
Updated: 2016-06-03
Packaged: 2018-07-11 23:43:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,602
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7075525
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ozhawk/pseuds/ozhawk
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A gift fic for charysaur, who won Second Prize in my <a href="http://ozhawkauthor.tumblr.com/post/144900496357/ozhawkauthor-ok-so-im-a-huge-dork-and-while">Tumblr 1111 Followers Giveaway</a>, and asked for a Pietro/Daisy meet-cute, which ended up becoming angsty because I decided to go with the post-S3 Daisy. Hope you enjoy it anyway, hon!</p>
            </blockquote>





	Running Into (Over) A Girl

**Author's Note:**

  * For [charysaur](https://archiveofourown.org/users/charysaur/gifts).



 [](http://s1383.photobucket.com/user/Catherine_Bilson/media/Miscllaneous/QuickQuake_zps6yjga5rs.jpg.html)

Pietro screamed silently into the pillow he was holding over his face, before flinging it aside and shoving himself out of bed. “Make all the noise you like, I’m going out!” he said loudly, yanking on some clothes and his running shoes.

There was a suspicious silence from the next room. He shook his head and hurried out. Wanda and Bucky meant well, trying to be quiet, but the walls were too thin. A _lot_ too thin.

Well, he would go for a run and maybe by the time he got back, they’d be done for the night. A forlorn hope, perhaps, but… he could always catch a few winks on the couch in the main living area.

The harness of weights he carried when he ran for exercise, to help build up his upper body strength, was hanging by the rear door. Pietro shrugged it on and headed out, glancing up at the sky. It was dry and clear, but there was no moon. Well, he could see well enough by starlight, and if he stayed on the right side of the road he wouldn’t run into any oncoming cars before they could see him. Jumping up and down a few times to let the weights settle into place, he took a deep breath and set off, barely more than a blur streaking through the night to anyone who might have been watching.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Daisy looked up at the big sign marked PRIVATE FACILITY: NO TRESPASSING, at the end of the long driveway, and took a deep breath. She’d hitched lifts across the country to get to this point, staying away from any security cameras and hopefully well off SHIELD’s radar. They’d want her to come back in, and she couldn’t do it; couldn’t endanger them any more. They were all too human, too fragile, to be around as someone as dangerous as she’d now become.

The people in the facility at the end of this driveway, though, weren’t human, at least for the most part; and those who _were_ , were extraordinary in their own right, all more than capable of taking care of themselves. Even against her. If they turned her away… well, she wasn’t sure what she’d do. This was the only place in the world where she might find a safe haven with people who understood what it was like to be so very _different_.

With another deep breath, she set her foot on the road and began to walk. A hacked satellite image had told her that the facility was still more than five miles from where she was now. She could probably make it before cars started coming along for the morning shift and someone asked where the hell she thought she was going.

Daisy never saw, or even heard, Pietro coming. One minute she was walking steadily along, one foot in front of the other, and the next something hit her from behind at incredible speed and she crashed to the ground, hitting her head on the tarmac and blacking out.

Pietro couldn’t believe it; who the hell went walking along a private military road dressed all in black in the dead of night? At first he’d thought it might be some sort of sneak attack, when he first hit the person, sending himself somersaulting through mid-air as well; though he recovered enough to roll as he hit the ground before leaping up and rushing back the way he’d come. He soon realised it was no sneak attack, though, but a _girl_ ; quite young he thought at first glance, with a black leather jacket over a black tank top and jeans, a beanie atop her long silky black hair.

She wasn’t armed, when he swiftly searched her. Her backpack contained little beyond an old laptop and a single change of clothes rolled into an efficiently small bundle. She was breathing deep and evenly, but she was also quite unconscious, and the lump rapidly swelling on her forehead was making Pietro feel decidedly anxious.

He looked up and down the road in indecision, but he was still about four miles from the facility. If he ran there and back to get help, it wasn’t impossible that a car might come along and hit her in the meantime… he cursed himself for not bringing his phone along.

“Please wake up,” he shook the girl’s shoulder gently. She didn’t stir; her head lolled aside. “ _Јеботе_!” he cursed to himself. “Come on then, _še ćeru._ Let’s go get your head checked out.” _(hell, sugar)_

Carefully, as gently as he could manage, he scooped the girl into his arms, supported her head against his shoulder as best he could and set off back for the facility, not at his top speed in case he jarred her too much, but still a good deal faster than any normal man could ever run.

There were lights on in the gym; he guessed Steve was there, so he ran to that door instead of using the one he’d exited by, shouldering it open and carrying the girl inside.

“Steve! Steve, I may have accidentally killed a goth!”

“WHAT?” Barbells clanged as Steve dropped them. “Where? How?”

“I ran over her.” Pietro laid the girl down on the gym mats where Steve pointed.

“You don’t have a driver’s licence, what were you doing in a car?” Steve demanded, shocked.

“I wasn’t in a car, Steve, I was running! I _ran_ over her. She was wearing all black, on a dark night, walking in the road…” Pietro gestured helplessly.

“You ran _into_ her,” Steve said, enlightened.

“Yes!” Frustrated, Pietro grabbed at his hair. “Yes, these stupid words, over, into, what does it matter? She hit her head on the road…”

“And she’s breathing just fine. Probably a concussion at the worst.” Steve picked her up again. “Come on. Let’s get her up to Dr. Cho. You go and wake the good doctor…”

Pietro was gone in a blur. Steve shook his head, amused. “And what were _you_ doing walking on the road at this hour of the morning, kiddo?” he murmured, looking down at the girl in his arms. “Runaway?” On second glance, she looked older than the teenager he’d first assumed, from her clothing, but not by much. Pietro’s age at most, he guessed, mid-twenties. “Well, let’s get you up to the infirmary and get that lump on your head sorted out, before we start asking you any questions.”

Pietro was already there with Helen Cho when Steve arrived; the pretty doctor looked decidedly ruffled, still in her pyjamas with her hair braided for sleep. She was as calmly competent as ever, though, gesturing to Steve to lay his burden on a medical bed and bending over the girl to perform a quick but thorough examination, checking on her pulse and breathing first before starting to look at her injuries.

“Hmm.” Carefully, Helen removed the beanie, blinking as the black hair came away as well, revealing itself to be a wig covering shorter hair, brown and slightly wavy with ombré streaks in the front. “Nasty bump on her forehead, a few scrapes  on her face from the road. She didn’t have time to put her hands out to save herself?” she checked the girl’s hands, found them clean.

“No,” Pietro shook his head. “Not at the speed I was travelling. She wouldn’t have known what hit her.”

“She might have some cracked ribs from the impact,” Helen said thoughtfully, reaching around to probe lightly at the girl’s sides. “Though hopefully this heavy jacket will have protected her somewhat, like a motorcycle jacket. You feeling banged up too, Pietro?”

“No,” he shrugged off the weights harness, remembering that he still had it on. “Nothing. Felt a bit bruised immediately afterwards, but it’ll have healed up by now if I did damage anything.”

“I think it’s best if I just treat the head wound for now. When she wakes up, she can tell us if there’s any more serious pain anywhere else.” Helen reached for some of her equipment, switched it on and set to work.

“It was on the road leading to the facility, where I ran over her,” Pietro said in a quiet undertone to Steve.

“Was it?” Steve blinked. “That’s interesting. Was she heading here?”

“Yes. So there may be more to her than meets the eye.” Pietro held up the backpack he’d searched. “There’s a laptop in here.”

“I’ll take it to Vision,” Steve said immediately. “You stay here, keep an eye on her. Just in case she’s a threat to Dr. Cho.”

Pietro nodded, pleased that he was being trusted with this rather than treated as an errand boy. “I will.”

He was the one on the spot, then, when the girl’s eyes snapped open and her hands came up to violently shove away Dr. Cho’s machine. Pietro caught Helen quickly, steadied her, and then grabbed the girl’s wrists.

“Easy,” he said, as reassuringly as he could. “You’ve hit your head. We’re giving you medical treatment.”

Dark brown eyes studied him before the girl said “I hit my head? I feel like I’ve been hit by a _truck_.”

Pietro winced. “I’m sorry. It was me, I was running, I ran over - ran _into_ you.”

“You’re the one they call Quicksilver.”

“Yes. Pietro’s my name. And you?”

“Daisy.”

She seemed calm, so he let go of her wrists. She turned her head to look around, wincing a little with pain. “Ow, _everything_ hurts. You sure you weren’t driving a truck?”

“I’m sorry,” he said again inadequately.

“I think you’d best go in the Cradle,” Helen Cho said quietly, setting her machine down. “Daisy, did you say? We have a machine here that can…”

“I know what the Cradle is.”

Both Pietro and Helen froze. There were very, very few people who were privy to that information, and almost all of them were in this building.

The door slid open and they both looked around, expecting Steve and Vision, but it was Maria Hill who walked through the doors, looking coolly put-together in a trouser suit, and not at all like she’d just got out of bed.

“There are a lot of people looking for you, young lady.”

Daisy scrambled to sit upright. “I’m not going back. You can’t make me go back. I can’t do it, I can’t endanger them any more…”

Maria made a calming gesture. “Daisy, it’s all right. I suspected you might come here when the Director called me about you. I only wish you’d talked to him before you left, because he’d have told you to come to us. There’s a place for you here, Daisy. As long as you need it.”

To Pietro’s horror, her face crumpled and Daisy began to cry, great heart-wrenching sobs that shook her slight frame and must have hurt, considering that she was already in pain. Instinctively, he put his arms around her, pulled her close. Small fingers curled in his shirt and she pressed her face against his chest and sobbed her heart out.

Maria intercepted Steve and Vision at the door and led them away with a few quiet words, and Helen busied herself preparing the Cradle. Pietro found himself left in relative privacy with Daisy, stroking her silky hair, trying to comfort her.

“It’s alright, you’re safe here. Nobody will hurt you,” and then, remembering what she’d said to Maria, “and you won’t hurt any of us, we can all take care of ourselves. It’s alright, Daisy.” After a while, he dropped into his own language, just keeping the cadence of his words soft and soothing, and eventually her heaving shoulders stilled, though she still clutched at his shirt, her breathing hitching with soft gasps.

Helen passed behind him and pressed a cloth gently into Pietro’s hand. He sent her a look of gratitude and leaned sideways to look at Daisy’s face, brushing her hair carefully aside and pressing the cloth to her wet, blotchy cheek.

“Thanks,” she whispered. “I’m sorry for crying all over you.”

“Hey, I’m sorry for running all over you. Does this make us even?” He grinned, trying to make her smile with the joke, and was encouraged when she smiled weakly back and let go of his shirt, taking the cloth and wiping at her face..

“Only if I don’t have your footprints on the back of my jacket.”

“Ah. Well. About that. I might owe you a few more crying jags on me, then.” Pietro gave her an apologetic tilt of his head, doing his best to look as appealing as possible. “Or, maybe, I can show you around the place later, when you’re feeling better?”

“I’d like that,” Daisy said with a slightly more genuine smile.

“The Cradle’s ready for you, Daisy,” Helen said then in her quiet voice, and Pietro felt Daisy’s fingers curl into his shirt again.

“I can stay with you,” he offered impulsively. “It won’t take long, only a few minutes, and you’ll just be asleep anyway - well, kind of, your brain goes into alpha-wave state - is that right, Helen?”

“Nice to know you’ve been listening, Pietro,” Helen said with a smile. “That’s quite correct. You won’t feel a thing, Daisy. It’ll be just like drifting off to sleep, and you’ll wake up in five minutes feeling perfectly fine. Pietro can sit right here by the Cradle.”

“Okay,” she agreed, and let him help her up, groaning painfully as what felt like every vertebrae in her spine protested the movement. Her head spun and she felt a little dizzy, but Pietro’s hold on her was firm and steady.

“Slip your jacket off,” Helen instructed, “and lie down here… you’re going to see a flash of violet light…”

Daisy opened her eyes.

Pietro was smiling down at her.

“Is it over?” she said, astonished.

“Are you feeling alright?” he asked in return.

“Yes…” she lifted wondering fingers to her forehead. Even the stinging on her cheeks and around her eyes from her crying was gone. “Wow, that really is miraculous!”

Helen smiled at her as Pietro helped her up from the Cradle. “Everything fixed, good as new. Except for this.” She held up Daisy’s leather jacket, turned it around to show the imprint of a running shoe squarely in the middle of the back. “This, I can’t fix. You’ll have to take it up with Speedy there.”

“See if I’m willing to run into town next time you get a craving for those sea salt caramel and chocolate pretzel clusters you love so much,” Pietro said with a mock-glare, before taking the jacket and draping it around Daisy’s shoulders. Helen only laughed at him.

“So, where first, Speedy?” Daisy nudged him lightly with her elbow as they headed for the door.

“Pietro,” he corrected automatically, “or Quicksilver, if you really want to use my code name. Do you have one?”

She hesitated for a moment. “I’ve had a few. Rockstar. Tremors. But the one I think I like best… is Quake.”

“Quake it is, then,” he agreed lightly. Nudged her back. “Quake and Quicksilver sounds pretty cool, dontcha think?”

She smiled and said nothing, but as they walked along the corridor, her hand found its way into his, small fingers curling around his longer ones. Pietro paused at the wide glass windows looking out over the grounds; dawn had broken and the sun was rising, casting bright spears over the dewy grass.

“I think I’m going to like it here,” Daisy said quietly. His fingers tightened on hers, and they stood watching the sun rise on a new day together.


End file.
